BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Peru’s Congress has approved a controversial reform to the country’s international cooperation law which imposes sweeping restrictions on civil society organizations in a move human rights groups warn could cripple efforts to defend vulnerable communities and fight corruption.
The decision modifies legislation passed in 2002 which established the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI) and regulates the oversight of international aid, but now expands the agency’s powers in ways critics say threaten the independence and work of non-profit organizations.
Supporters of the decision say it boosts transparency, but critics see it as a way to pressure human rights groups.
“Beyond the false argument of transparency, the law doesn’t seek to make anything more transparent,” Carlos Rivera, director of the Legal Defense Institute, a Peruvian human rights advocacy NGO, told The Associated Press. “What it really aims to do is create a climate of repression and persecution.”
Rivera says he is particularly concerned about a provision that makes it a serious offense for non-profits to provide legal action, advice, assistance, or funding for any administrative or judicial cases against the government, both nationally and internationally.
"It’s obviously one of the most unconstitutional things — perhaps the most unconstitutional — passed in Peru since the 1995 amnesty laws,” Rivera said.
The 1995 amnesty laws in Peru shielded military and police personnel from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during the country’s internal conflict, including massacres, torture, and forced disappearances. They were later declared unconstitutional for violating the right to justice and breaching international human rights standards.
Rivera said the law could severely restrict Indigenous communities’ access to justice, as they rely heavily on legal support from non-profits.
“From one day to the next, they won’t be able to manage their defenses … nearly 100% of cases are handled by non-governmental organizations,” he said.
Peru's government did not respond to a requests for comment.
Ahead of the vote, right-wing congressman Alejandro Munante delivered a sharp critique of non-profits, claiming they “are not accountable to anyone, do not pay taxes, and set the country’s political agenda.”
“It is not true that NGOs have been operating in Peru without any accountability,” Julia Urrunaga, director of Peru Programs at the Environmental Investigation Agency, told the AP. “The APCI agency has existed for the last over 20 years and the NGOs operating in the country and receiving tax benefits have been reporting to them with plenty of detail.”
Urrunaga is “seriously concerned” because the law will eliminate the independence of the NGOs and Indigenous organizations.
“Under the bill, the Peruvian government will have the capacity to censor any activities that they won't like from NGOs, given that under this new law NGOs will have to present their plans in advance to be pre approved by the government,” she said. “Operating without such approval, or taking actions that have not been approved will be considered illegal.”
Tom Younger, Peru Programme Coordinator of the U.K.-based Forest Peoples Programme, said the “reactionary law strikes a harsh blow against all of those struggling to defend human rights, territories of life and the climate across Peru,” but that it "has much broader ramifications, given the strengthening of authoritarian forces internationally."
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Steven Grattan, The Associated Press
